=Source.=--_The Saturday Review_, November 29.
The personal enthusiasm with which Mr. Gladstone is regarded by the
mass of his followers has been largely stimulated by his appearance
in Scotland and by his fervid harangues. The only local topic on
which he has cared to dwell is the alleged creation of fagot votes
by his opponents. There can be no doubt that the purchase of little
freeholds for the sole purpose of obtaining votes is an abuse and a
grievance, though it is said that Mr. Gladstone once held a fagot
vote. For two or three years of his life Mr. Cobden concentrated
all his efforts on a gigantic scheme of fagot votes, by which the
manufacturing towns were to obtain control of the counties; but the
total failure of the project caused it to be tacitly abandoned.
If Mr. Gladstone is after all defeated in Midlothian, the moral
effect of a Conservative victory will be greatly impaired by the
process of tampering with the representation. To Mr. Gladstone's
excited mind an attempt to pack a constituency probably assumes
extravagant dimensions. Before he arrived at Edinburgh he began
his public protest against fagot votes in Midlothian, as well as
against the crimes of a Government which he has persuaded himself
to regard as the worst and most dangerous that has held power in
England. He has denounced his opponents so loudly and so often that
even his overflowing eloquence could include nothing new, but the
crowded assemblies which he addressed, though they had read his
orations, and perhaps his pamphlets, had not heard him speak. It is
not surprising that eager and unanimous multitudes should welcome
with admiration and delight the detailed exposition, by the most
eloquent of politicians, of the opinions which they had already
been taught to hold. Few cold-blooded or dispassionate sceptics
would ask themselves whether it was credible that a Ministry
and a great and steady majority of the House of Commons should
never, even by accident, have deviated into prudence, justice, or
patriotic foresight. In private discussion and in Parliamentary
debate it is found expedient, according to the old legal phrase, to
give colour, or, in other words, to admit that the theory, which is
impugned, though unsound, is at least credible or intelligible. Mr.
Gladstone follows the bent of his own genius when he encourages the
popular tendency to deal with difficult controversies as if they
were wholly one-sided.
His Liberal colleagues, perhaps, regard his present enterprise
with mixed feelings. Their confidence in their former leader is
qualified by doubts of his judgment, and by uncertainty as to the
present range of his ambition. They cannot but perceive that he
assumes the character of representative of the party, although he
probably intends no disloyalty to its official or nominal chiefs.
It is true that if, in appealing to the multitude, he pushes his
successors aside, they have little right to complain. Almost
all of them have of late addressed vehement language to public
meetings, though none of them can compete with Mr. Gladstone in
the power of stirring political passion. Official subordination
is set aside when policy is regulated, not by Parliament, but by
the voice of the general population. Senators and Consulars must
stand aside in the presence of a Dictator. Although it has long
been customary for statesmen to make occasional speeches to public
meetings, the extent to which the practice has lately been carried
is altogether unprecedented. The result is that the Constitution
is gradually weakened by the substitution of numerical majorities
for the representatives of the people in Parliament. The approach
of a General Election furnishes no sufficient justification for
an innovation which accelerates the prevalence of democracy, and
aggravates its evil tendencies. Mr. Gladstone himself perhaps
understands and approves the organic change which promotes the
supremacy of popular eloquence in the State. It is his habit to
depreciate the honesty and judgment of the educated classes.